Aaron Swartz "JSTOR" court case drags on

[Original, if boring, reporting below]

It's been more than a year since the
Aaron Swartz indictment
was announced (disclosure: I know him socially, and have admired
his work). The court case has fallen out of the news now. But it hasn't
been dropped or plea-bargained. It's still slowly and agonizingly grinding
through the legal system. I've been following it via the
court filings, out of personal interest
in situations where programmers get sued for electronic activism.

Basically,
Judge Learned Hand was right about lawsuits, they are dreadful. On and
on the filing go, a slow-motion battle that is part war of attrition,
part trial by ordeal before trial by jury. It appears that Aaron
Swartz is fortunate enough to be able to mount a first-class defense,
so his lawyers can challenge various evidence that the prosecution
wants to introduce. Here's some of the flavor of the process, from
a status conference:

[snip] ... The defense intends to file Motions to Suppress and Dismiss. The
parties agree that such motions will be filed raise complex matters
and that the Court should set a filing date for such matters 60 days
from the date of the status conference;

(6) The parties propose that expert witness disclosure in this case
take place in three phases. The government will make its initial
expert witness disclosure 11 weeks before trial. The defense will
make theirs 8 weeks before trial. The government may then make an
additional expert disclosure 5 weeks before trial, if an additional
expert or experts are necessary to address matters raised in the
defense disclosure. [snip]

(9) The parties believe that trial is likely and that the trial
will last around 3 weeks.

This apparently is going to continue on for a long time yet.

Update: As of August 2012, the trial date was set for February 4, 2013